Maria Bechily joins Goodman Theatre's tour to Cuba — her homeland

It will be a homecoming of sorts for Maria Bechily and three other Chicagoans traveling to Cuba next week as part of a Goodman Theatre educational tour.

She and her three companions are of Cuban descent. Traveling with Ms. Bechily are Sunny Chico, wife of Gery Chico, chairman of the state Board of Education; Molly Mahoney, wife of attorney Bill Mahoney; and Henry Godinez, the resident artistic associate at the Goodman.

It is Ms. Chico's first time back to Cuba in 40 years. "It's very emotional," she told me in a brief phone conversation.

In all, about 40 people are taking part in Goodman's tour.

Ms. Bechily is a familiar name in Chicago's art and philanthropic scenes, but her personal story is little-known.

In 1961, she was part of Operation Peter Pan, the CIA project that transferred 14,000 Cuban children from their homeland to Miami and then to foster homes all over the U.S. The program, organized in part by the Catholic Church, was intended to protect children of parents who opposed the revolutionary government of Fidel Castro.

Ms. Bechily, who was 12, was sent to a home in Chicago and then moved to a home in Evanston, where she stayed for two years before her parents joined her and her two brothers, who were in different homes in the area.

“It was a long separation, particularly at that age,” Ms. Bechily recalled this week. “Life goes very slowly when you're young. You think it's forever.”

She still remembers the reunion with her parents. “My foster father was a high school teacher who during the summers was an athletic director at a club in Ann Arbor, Mich. So I took the train from Ann Arbor downtown (to Chicago). An uncle was living in the U.S. and picked me up and we took the el all the way to Evanston, where my parents were. I remember getting off the train at Maple Street and sobbing.”

The family stayed in Chicago, and Ms. Bechily went on to find success in her adopted hometown. She started her own business as a consultant for Latino companies (she's now retired) but stays active in the community, along with her husband, attorney Scott Hodes.

Ms. Bechily is on the board of the Chicago Community Trust and has been part of the Chicago Landmarks Commission and the Chicago Tourism Council, as well as a life trustee at the Goodman, which has presented numerous Latino-centric productions thanks in part to Mr. Godinez's work.

She visited Cuba last year after a 20-year absence (she was there in 1986 and '89) and encouraged then-Chairman Patricia Cox and others to travel there for artistic inspiration. “The Goodman has deep roots through Henry Godinez's work,” she said. “It's important for us to go.”